The knife market bubble needs to happen

I think that is important to those of us who love knives, use knives, and appreciate good quality to educate and emphasize the advantages of using knives as tools and the positive, enjoyable and tradition of collecting to others who may not understand our hobby. There are many who still do not care, but the chance we can share with just a few who do care and like knives can have positive results. Show knives in a positive light and not give into the scare tactics of those who want to ban them.
 
Ryanol said:
I firmly think in the near term (4-8rs) we see the loss or at least one major knife manufacturer. The customers embrace of tactical knives in combination with high end materials like carbon fiber and titanium handles with lots of intensive machining makes it almost impossible to compete. Combine that with the fact that folks were willing to pay almost as much for knives from new manufacturer's with little to no known customer service track record puts them in a real tough spot.

Idk I've never utilized the lifesharp type warranty from Reate or We knives but I imagine it's a little bit tougher to coordinate the return trip sending in the knife for service. (When I've brought this up in the past people have justified away the service stating they'll just fix it or sharpen it themselves) that tells me they undervalue what lifesharp provides and what I worry about mostly is that the us manufacturer's will stop offering a service with little perceived value.
Click to expand...

Not sure about other manufacturers but the only time I used Reate warranty service (for taking out and replacing a stripped and stuck pivot screw), it was actually pretty good.

My main concern with these new and small companies is more on their sustainability. Will they still exist 5 or 10 years down the road? If not, the so-called lifetime warranty would actually be nothing close to lifetime.
 
cbrstar said:
People don't realize that when you are in business sometimes you have to slow the demand by increasing prices.
Personally before I had a bad motorcycle accident, I had a small watch repair shop. I started off charging what I thought was fair for an hours work. Well word got out about the quality of my work and soon I was overrun by customers. I was working 12 hours a day 7 days a week and barely keeping up. I had one guy drop off 30 watches at a time.
It got to the point where I needed to hire someone. But the problem was there was no one else like me. What I needed to do was increase the prices for my work. I doubled the prices 3x in a single year. I found that I still had enough work to keep busy and I still made enough money to pay rent. The quality of my life increased and I was earning more.

Tl;Dr
With a Knife manufacturer I think they are often faced with the same problem. When the demand is way too high to meet your production you are faced with three options.
1) Go into debt buy more tooling hire more employee's. But with the uncertainty of the market who want's to do that? You risk over expanding during a market crash which could wipe out your business.
2) Outsource but that may effect how people view your image especially if the other company makes it better then you.
3) Increase prices and slow down the demand to manageable levels.

All the companies that are jacking their prices just happen to be the most popular ones.
Click to expand...

All these are based on the assumption that supply cannot keep up with demand. For some models from sime manufacturers, it might be the case. However, I do not believe that is the case for all models of a given company. If so, it does not explain why the company increases the prices of all its models.
 
jackknife said:
It was never in me to support outright greed. And that's what the knife companies are doing. They took their cue from the Realestate, car, and gun markets. Use enough hype and smoke and mirrors and you can sell gold plated horse manure. If it's worth 50 dollars, then with some good hype you can get 100 for it.

The last 30 years of my working life I worked in manufacturing. I look at the modernknivqes, especially those made by the company with a rabid fan boy base, and I see knives engineered to be easier and faster and cheaper to produce and assemble. Express purpose is to have a bigger profit margin.

And the fan boys fall for it.

One of these days the bubble may break and some companies will go under.
Click to expand...


Exactly. The "style" (or lack thereof) is dictated by ease of manufacture, and then the resulting item is pumped up as if it's super special and worth a lot.
 
sharp_edge said:
All these are based on the assumption that supply cannot keep up with demand. For some models from sime manufacturers, it might be the case. However, I do not believe that is the case for all models of a given company. If so, it does not explain why the company increases the prices of all its models.
Click to expand...

There's lots of reasons for price increases. It's usually of competitive advantage to keep prices as low as is feasible, so greed is among the least likely reasons for it. Materials, labor, investments in tooling, property, plant, or equipment, changes in the supply chain structure, increases in overhead costs or administrative expenses...even just plain ol' inflation--it all adds up. When a reputable company increases prices, it's usually because their hand is forced. It's a more sound strategy to simply introduce a new item with a stronger margin than previous offerings than to introduce the item at one price with the intention of creeping prices for all models globally upward over the course of a number of years. So either they got more expensive to make, or demand needs to be kept in check. If the market forces were rewarding lowering prices, that's what we'd be seeing. :)
 
G
sharp_edge said:
Not sure about other manufacturers but the only time I used Reate warranty service (for taking out and replacing a stripped and stuck pivot screw), it was actually pretty good.

My main concern with these new and small companies is more on their sustainability. Will they still exist 5 or 10 years down the road? If not, the so-called lifetime warranty would actually be nothing close to lifetime.
Click to expand...
Glad to hear. Nice to hear that it's not to big of a deal. Do they have a us location you ship to for warranty work or did you ship it to China?
 
I don't see knives as a bubble. Individual companies have flown too close to the sun and Icarus-ed themselves, but not the entire industry. Its not like with firearms at various points where sudden demand had companies popping up then vanishing, or Dot-coms going broke before the office was even set up.
Will there be a large economic shift? Maybe, but I don't think it will be a 1929 dump. Even if it was, there is enough skilled people who would be able to re-start things from a local level, and life would be slower, but would still carry on. Yes there is the "three day" problem, but I have more hope in humanity than that, I think that if everyone was in the boat, people would start rowing. Most of the trouble with disasters is outsiders, not those directly effected.
So if there is a slow economic shift to some sort of "Post-capitalism" I still see that there will be people who want to buy knives, buy good knives, buy cheap knives. The industrial revolution didn't end the livelihood of the artisan like the Luddites thought it would, but it did change it. The truth of the matter is that even if everyone on this board was out of a job tomorrow, along with every one of their neighbors, the easiest solution is just to have everyone go back to work, keep the wheels turning, and figure it out. That might mean everyone does their job a little different, but there are very few if any truly useless jobs.
 
Markets shift in every age. Good businesses adapt. Those that don't, die. So, too, shall it be with the knife and tool industry, as it always has. :)
 
sharp_edge said:
Reate has a service office in Cali.
Click to expand...
Plus if you send them to China the process is surprisingly quick. This trade route is quite established.
I feel we are in a golden age of the knives that are available to us now.
I've been a certified knife nut since my Granddad bought me a few case knifes at age 6 or 7? Showed me how to use, and not use them. Lost them all or my Mom secretly confiscated them.
Then later the Buck 110 vs. the Gerbers were the battle of opinions at my high school. Bucks 420 vs Gerbers 440c. Both great knives..then and now.
These steels and materials today astonish me. I've always loved my knives, but what's out there today blows me away.
It's more than I want to spend on them, but I believe in free markets and I like capitalism. It takes care of itself. If I want a new knife, I know it's going to cost me so I do what I can.
To see Russian and the Chinese and other countries, whether you may or may not like or agree with their politics, produce nice nice stuff...and participating in the free market is a good thing IMHO.
I just love knives, it's not going away.
You couldn't get half of the stuff out there you can now...just 15 years ago. Not even close.
Next! Excited to see what's next.
 
Given the same manufacturing locations, techniques, and materials knife prices will go up. The consumer base might not be there to support as many makers.
 
Last edited:
jmh33 said:
I kills me that there are those out there beating their chests defending price increases/inflation because "That's the way its always been" :rolleyes:!! I like more money in my pocket NOT less..:D Fair prices.. Not bend over and smile!!!o_O
John
Click to expand...

FWIW, you’ll have more money in your pocket if you don’t spend it. Things are 100% off if you don’t buy it. As others have mentioned, having tens or hundreds of knives is a luxury want, not a need.
 
GatorMedic said:
FWIW, you’ll have more money in your pocket if you don’t spend it. Things are 100% off if you don’t buy it. As others have mentioned, having tens or hundreds of knives is a luxury want, not a need.
Click to expand...

OK.. :rolleyes:
 
According to an article published in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2006, Emerson sold $10 million knives in 2005. Now let's say on average each Emerson knife sold for $200, which means a total of about 50,000 pieces were sold in 2005. That's A LOT of knives and I tend to believe only a very small percentage of those knives were purchased by folks here.

Then, is it safe to assume that the majority of those Emerson knives went to Military, Rescuers, LEOs, and such? I imagine those people probably won't buy multiple knives with each costing $50 or more, but their population is huge. If I were one of them and I buy only one knife in five years, I would not care about a 10% annual price increase.

How about other brands like Benchmade, ZT, and Spyderco? Are their main users/customers also from Military, LEOs, and such?

I guess the points (not necessarily facts) I am trying to make are:
- There is a much larger population of "expensive" knives (Spyderco, Benchmade, ZT, Emerson, etc.)
- The majority of them didn't, don't, and won't buy multiples of such knives in a year or over years
- As such, the annual price increase as we've seen will not affect their knife purchase decision.
 
sharp_edge said:
According to an article published in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2006, Emerson sold $10 million knives in 2005. Now let's say on average each Emerson knife sold for $200, which means a total of about 50,000 pieces were sold in 2005. That's A LOT of knives and I tend to believe only a very small percentage of those knives were purchased by folks here.

Then, is it safe to assume that the majority of those Emerson knives went to Military, Rescuers, LEOs, and such? I imagine those people probably won't buy multiple knives with each costing $50 or more, but their population is huge. If I were one of them and I buy only one knife in five years, I would not care about a 10% annual price increase.

How about other brands like Benchmade, ZT, and Spyderco? Are their main users/customers also from Military, LEOs, and such?

I guess the points (not necessarily facts) I am trying to make are:
- There is a much larger population of "expensive" knives (Spyderco, Benchmade, ZT, Emerson, etc.)
- The majority of them didn't, don't, and won't buy multiples of such knives in a year or over years
- As such, the annual price increase as we've seen will not affect their knife purchase decision.
Click to expand...

Do bear in mind that there's an old rule of thumb in industry that largely holds true, regardless of what market you talk about: "20% of the consumers purchase 80% of the product." So-called "super fans" are a small part of the market when you take a head count, but they're not small beans by any stretch.
 
I’m spending pretty heavily on knives and related gear this year but once I’m done, I’m done. I’ve gone for years without buying a knife and it’ll happen again. I imagine other people go in and out of the market over time too.
 
GatorMedic said:
FWIW, you’ll have more money in your pocket if you don’t spend it. Things are 100% off if you don’t buy it. As others have mentioned, having tens or hundreds of knives is a luxury want, not a need.
Click to expand...

First world issues :D
 
I do not have much to add that people much smarter than I have already said. I DO know that I took a short break and when I returned that I was shocked at the prices of new knives. My knife buying habits have changed and it is unlikely that I will buy more than one ot two knives next year if any at all.
It has gotten too expensive for me. I have been more or less priced out of the market. That money can spent on other things.
 
Last edited:
You can get a Spyderco in any size you want for $15-25 but it will say "Byrd"on it. If you desire the Spyderco brand emblazoned on the blade, or exotic handle materials, or M4 steel, well those are luxury items and you should expect to pay luxury prices.

And if you think prices for cutting-edge luxury knives are high, just be glad you're not into luxury watches!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top